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From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: critics (Long!!)
Message-ID: <405@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Sep-85 16:23:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.405
Posted: Wed Sep 11 16:23:35 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Sep-85 03:39:25 EDT
References: <3383@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <> <276@proper.UUCP> <247@hyper.UUCP>
Reply-To: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Distribution: net
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
Lines: 149

In article <247@hyper.UUCP> brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) writes:

>> Do you mean that if a large no. of people can't understand it, it can't be
>> great art?  And if you have to work to understand it, ditto?
>
>No and yes.  

So a book can be 'great art' if many people can't understand it, but
can't be great art if it requires work? Consider the subclass of books
that you'd call 'great art.' By your answers to above questions, some
of those 'great books' are beyond the abilities of many people to
understand them. But these impenetrable books have to be accessible to
fit your criterion for 'great art.' How can they be impenetrable and
accessible at the same time? Is this like a Zen koan? ;-)
 
>...  However, a work that is opaque to
>the average contemporary reader is never, in my opinion, great art.
>It is fine if the reader has to work at it; it is flawed if
>the reader has insufficant reason to want to. 

Semantics: the relationships between signs and symbols and the
concepts, feelings, etc. associated with them in the minds of their
interpreters. What you're doing here is stating a personal definition
of art (and what's more GREAT art). Stating an idiosyncratic
definition doesn't redefine a term for society at large. Furthermore,
a term like 'great art' can have an interpretation agreed upon by a
subgroup in society that differs from the interpretation that's
considered commonly accepted. Which definition is 'correct,' and does
correctness have any meaning in this context? The answer is not as
immediately obvious as you seem to want us to believe.

Consider, for example, the loaded term 'secular humanist.' If a group
of people decide to create a new symbol like this and use it regularly to
describe reality their very use of the symbol tends to lend it a
certain credibility. Perhaps the media-concocted term 'yuppie' is a
perfect example. Many people's belief in this creature is supported by
the fact that media people seem to believe it exists (or created it to
sell newspapers and magazines).

As human beings, we use symbols to partition the world and make sense
of it. But it's easy to confuse the symbol with reality: creating a
symbol like 'yuppie' doesn't automatically imply that a creature that
fits the definition of yuppie is real. And my use of the symbol is no
guarantee that everyone else uses it in the same way. The confusion of
the symbol with the symbolized is one reason why people come to believe 
in a term like 'yuppie' without bothering to question whether it 
describes something that really exists as a discrete and unambiguous 
category of objects. We change our own perception of reality to an 
extent through our creation and manipulation of symbols: a study of 
an American Indian society that recognizes a different set of primary 
colors than the Anglo's Roy G. Biv found that its members were very 
good at recognizing fine shades of blue-green (one of their primary 
colors) but not as good at recognizing fine shades of blue or green 
(our primary colors). The situation was reversed for members of 
Anglo-American society (note: for anyone who's interested I think 
this was a study by Benjamin Whorf; someone will correct me if I'm 
wrong).

The argument over 'great art' is an argument about the meaning of a
symbol. Our understanding of the word 'art' is conditioned by cultural
forces as well as personal. Made objects in other societies may look
aesthetically pleasing, and stories told in other societies may be fun
to listen to. But the fundamental relationship between human being and
made object/story may be profoundly different than what we're used to.
A story may be given ritual embellishments that are pleasing but are
intended to please the gods rather than the listeners, for example.
And a battle-axe may be given intricate carvings to increase its
ritual power or simply because the society believes that's the way a
battle axe SHOULD look. There ain't no such animal as 'art' in the 
sense of an object or category that has reality as a primary attribute. 
'Art' describes a relationship that exists between a member of a 
culture and the objects of its own creation. Anyone who's interested 
in this might want to check out "The Savage Mind" by Claude 
Levi-Strauss. What Steve Brust is doing here, it seems to me, is 
coming up with his own personal symbol for the reader/book relationship 
and asking us to accept it as superior to other symbols for that 
relationship that many other members of society use. The only reason 
a phrase like 'great book' exists is that one or more persons decided 
to invent it to describe a class of objects. Its use says nothing 
about the existence or nonexistence of that class of objects, just 
as saying 'shiftless welfare moochers' does not automatically cause 
an underclass to spring into existence. Mr. Brust has one definition 
of 'great art' which he defines for us here at some length. The 
term means something different, however, to many of the rest of us 
who happen to share this culture with him. A consensus on its meaning 
(if there is one) would define certain attributes that indicate a 
great book. Lasting power is one that's often mentioned, but more 
fundamental is perhaps the illumination of those characteristics that 
define us as human beings: the meaning of life, love, and hate in 
human relationships; the growth and decay of societies and cities; 
and so on. It's our recognition of our own passions, strengths and 
weaknesses in Shakespeare that many people believe is responsible 
for his continued success as a writer over the centuries, not that 
he's 'fun to read.' 
 
>I don't "insist" on that, and I do, in fact, read authors who
>force me to work and are not enjoyable.  These people are craftsman
>in their own way.  But I do not call them artists.  What they
>produce just isn't good enough.  

Now you're redefining 'craftsman' and 'quality' for the rest of us. I
think you believe a little too strongly in the power of your personal 
definitions, Steve. Your refusal to call them artists has little to do
with the conventionally accepted definition of art, and you're going
to have to go a lot farther to prove to us that it's worthwhile
scrapping a definition most people agree on for your own idiosyncrasy.

The bottom line would seem to be that you equate working for something
with drudgery and art with fun. I'm sure you've known people who enjoy
work and feel that art is drudgery. Your attitudes may be related to
the division in our society between labor and leisure. Since you see
reading and art (perhaps) as leisure time activities, any suggestion 
that work might be involved in reading a particular 'work of art'
causes you to eliminate it from the category of possible 'great
books.' But the division between labor and leisure in our society has
to do with our economic system; it doesn't mean that abstract entities
called 'labor' and 'leisure' really exist (for those who are
interested in this topic, there was a philosopher who wrote a book
about this; it has 'Leisure' in its title, and may have been written
by Karl Popper. I'm sure your local library has it). One man's labor is
another's leisure; the personal computer is a perfect example. I
happen to enjoy the work I put into reading a 'difficult' book; it's
part of the 'fun' of reading it for me.  

>...  The points you raise are well taken.  But I continue to
>disagree.  I'm glad I read Moby Dick.  There was a lot to it.
>But it failed as art.  Huckleberry Finn did not.  There was
>as much going on underneath, but Twain didn't leave the roof off
>his house.  It had a top level--fun--that was there too.  Melville
>should have had an editor with a big blue pen.  It wasn't fun.
>I don't think it will last.  I could (always always always) be wrong.

I know several people beside myself who ENJOY Melville and think he's
fun (two of them are old Navy men and sailing buffs). It's full of the 
sea, wisdom, and a hell of a sense of humor. The scene where Queequeg 
(sp?) crawls into bed with Ishmael for the first time is amusing to me 
as is the initial scene where Ishmael talks about getting the 'hypos' 
and hitting out for the open sea. I IDENTIFY with Ishmael, laugh with 
him as I recognize a common and primordial human experience, and as a
result I have (believe it or not) FUN when I read the book. What you're 
talking about is your own personal preferences and prejudices, not 
about qualities people can use to reach a consensus on to define 
what's 'great art' and what's not.

As to Moby Dick's 'lasting:' it was written (I think) in 1835 or
thereabouts. How many novels continue to have admirers and readers who
enjoy them after 150 years?

                                -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly